


"Oh, We're in Love, Aren't We?"

by BabySnoopy



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Fluff without Plot, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-30 16:47:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17832377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BabySnoopy/pseuds/BabySnoopy
Summary: when mark suddenly realises what you really mean to him





	"Oh, We're in Love, Aren't We?"

**Author's Note:**

> suddenly that video of mark singing hearts dont break around me intruded my thoughts and wouldn't leave until i wrote something

Tales of a teenage love affair filled your Friday nights much too sweetly that you swore you were spoiling your teeth rotten. Your footsteps grew lighter, like clouds slowly solidifying under your sneakers with every step you took towards the hooded figure waiting for you. You were twenty minutes late but you still paused when he came into your line of sight.

Who would’ve known Mark Lee would be the one to fess up as the owner of those anonymous love notes? Yes, Mark Lee who made you cry in fourth grade because he accidentally lost your new pen but also the same Mark Lee who bought you a dozen different coloured ones the next week to make up for it.

The days of heart-pounding, elementary school crushes fluttered by and now he stood taller, shoulders broader, and entire demeanour still as shy as ever. His hands were stuffed into the pockets of his jeans as he gently kicked a couple pebbles to pass the time. It was a spring tainted with the unrelenting arms of winter, the fog escaping his exhales proving so. Mark was beautiful at 18, though you know you shouldn’t have been so surprised since you had been the one to call it ever since he first graced you with a toothy grin as kids.

“Hey,” you finally say, walking towards him. He turns around to reveal a reddened nose, sniffling from the cold.

“You’re late.” He doesn’t move towards you, just cocks his head like he’s waiting for some sort of explanation as to why you so leisurely came by.

In truth, there was no other reason you were late except for the fact that you adored the expression he had on now. You could see he was trying to keep a straight face to act annoyed, but his eyes told an entirely different story when they looked so longingly at you, like he was more relieved you had shown up anyway. You promised yourself this was the last time you’d come late on purpose but he was so cute you couldn’t help but laugh at the way he pleaded.

“Why are you smiling?” He asks, still oblivious to the puppy-eyes he was giving you. You shook your head fervently as you moved your face into his chest, wrapping your arms tightly around his waist. He doesn’t move to envelope you as well but neither does he wriggle out of your embrace.

“Late-comers don’t deserve hugs.”

You lift your head up so your chin poked against him and your eyes meet his. “I’m sorry,” you mumble and you try your very best to sound sincere but if Mark’s heart was made of candle wax, your sole presence was enough of a flame to melt it. He caves when you feel his arms spread, first with his palms on your shoulders, and then both his arms criss-crossing behind your neck.

“Wanna sneak into the park?” You said, as you both let go of each other. Again, your spontaneity bubbles out of you uncontrollably and you blame it entirely on Mark for making you feel so dangerously safe whenever he’s around.

“I’m pretty sure it’s closed at this time of night…”

“I know another way in.” Your hands are snug in his, palms perfectly made for each other and you pull him along with you.

The local park in your town wasn’t very large and there wasn’t much to do other than prance around the small playground in the middle that consisted of only monkey bars, a creaky swing set, and a slide. But it was a park that doubled as one of those old photo albums you’d pull out decades later, when dust collects and the love stories you thought would never end, do. This park held all the special memories that make you smile to yourself when you think of them and so its grown on you.

You find a car parked close to one of the short walls that enclosed the park and thought that fate was working in favour of you. You look back to see Mark’s face lit by the flickering street lamp and you reassure him with a smile; of course you knew what you were doing.

“No one’s going to see us, everyone’s busy at that party downtown. Stop worrying so much!”

“So you’re going to get onto the roof of that car… and climb over the wall?” You don’t really respond, one foot already stepping onto the hood and your eyes scanning over the wall, hoping to find a tree close enough so you could grab onto a branch or something.

After a bit of hesitation on Mark’s part, some stealthy wall-climbing, and swinging off a sturdy branch - big thanks to Mark’s height and strength - you both finally land in the park in one piece. The thought of how you’re supposed to make it back out escapes you when you see the Spider Tree just ahead.

The Spider Tree earned its name through the thick roots that spread out from its trunk, unearthing and twisting with each other so eerily that the bigger kids sometimes scared their juniors, like you, about some old myth about how spiders used to live in those roots. But those scary myths no longer frightened you, definitely not more than the thought of losing Mark so instead you feel the tree pull you towards it, towards the one side in which you had, very childishly, carved your initial and Mark’s on the old, toughened bark. You run your hand down the carving like you had only done it yesterday and Mark does the same, seeing this inscription for the first time ever.

“Aw, M for Mark?”

“No, M for Minho,” you tease. He scrunches his nose in disapproval. “Of course M for you, silly.”

He keeps staring at you like he’s about to say something, but doesn’t. When when you take off to run up the slide and when you sit down on the swing, all he did was watch you, memorising the way your cheeks bunch up when you laugh with a trillion stars bearing witness to it. You wondered what he was thinking, knowing that if you asked outright, he would stutter and start to blush on his own.

“I’ll push you,” he offers, and you kick your legs in the air in excitement. It’s been ages since you’ve been on the swings and you think the last time someone’s pushed you were your parents.

It starts off slow and when you start to swing higher, you hang your head back as you fly forward, timing the swing of your legs to gain momentum to get even higher. You swing back and feel Mark’s palms on your back ready to push you again, when you hear him say something. He said it so lightly that it might have barely floated atop his breath. You were quick to catch it though, your senses always hyperaware around him and when you register the words, you feel cupid’s arrow finally strike you in the middle of your heart. You plant your feet firmly on the ground immediately and turn back at him.

“What did you just say?”

Mark blinks, deer caught in headlights indeed, as he tried to make excuses. He’s looking everywhere else but at you, his hands playing with the strings of his hoodie. After moments of unprecedented silence, he glances at you to check if you were still looking at him, still expecting an answer. When he finds that you are, he realises he’s cornered and admits defeat.

“Um, I just… It’s… It’s really cheesy, you’ll hate me.”

“Oh please, I’ve already surpassed cheesy when I carved our initials onto a tree.”

You made a valid point and now he’s even more nervous, his foot mindlessly drawing circles in the sand. He’s not sure what came over him. Mark was one to believe in those big moments. You know, the ones that were more planned and grandiose. It was go big or go home for him in everything that he did and he was sure that the same would have followed with you. He had it sort of mapped out in his head. How he’d convince Taeyong to teach him how to cook so he could make you dinner. He’d have Lucas help him pick out candles and music. The weather would be perfect and the timing was just meant to be  _right_. And that’s when he’d say it.

He never imagined the words would involuntarily roll off his tongue as he’s just watching you look so happy on the swings. “I think…” He starts jumping in place now, groaning and cringing at what he’s about to say because the weight of these words felt like a physical thing he could maybe shake off.

“I think I’m in lo—”

With you still seated on the swing, you tug on his arm with a violent grip to pull him closer to you so that your arm could reach over and cover his mouth. Your palms are on his lips before he gets to finish his sentence and your eyes widened by the second. “Were you going to say the L-word?” You hush.

Without meaning to, Mark feels himself nod at your question. He isn’t sure if you asked in bewilderment, like the L-word was taking things way too seriously or too quickly in this relationship, or if you asked because you were overwhelmed, like maybe you’d never expect someone like him to be the one to say it first. With your unreadable expression intensified by the moonlight, Mark’s thoughts drift to the former option.

You remove your hand from his lips and get up to cup his cheeks, ice cold fingertips coming in contact with his face that kept burning hotter. He’s only inches away from you and the way you prolonged the silence made the air tight. In all your seriousness, you finally speak and the words that fill the silence that made him so jumpy, let him release any leftover nervousness he had, leaving space to fill him up with all the warmth that came with your touch.

Now Mark’s embarrassment seemed to have transferred to you as you feel your toes curl at what you tell him and the blood rush to your face so quickly.

“We’re in love, aren’t we?” you whisper.


End file.
